Our Trip

Day Fifteen

Waking up on Day Fifteen

and the temperature was down to 3 degrees!

Brrrr. An extra jacket today.

Even Dave needed his extra jacket, 

which means it was REALLY cold!

It was very difficult packing up and moving

away from the lovely warm fire.  

We stopped for a quick look at the Well 13 

ruins and passed a burnt out Land Rover

along the way. 

More sand dunes and corrugates.

All similar, but all different. 

I stopped to take a photo of this

tree as I just loved the weird bark? 

or whatever you call it. 

Arriving at Well 12, a restored well,

we found a sign that read,

"Be careful. Live snake in well. We retrieved one live one.

 Still one live one in there. Was hiding in rocks at bottom of well.

 Tuesday 10 July 2018 2.45pm" 

It was dated 6 days before we got there,

so we didn't see any snake. It must have left. 

Further down the track, we came to

Lake Aerodrome. 

You follow the track along the edge of the salt

lake, skirting the edge for the whole width of the lake. 

We headed on to Well 11 ruins,

passing another 3 vehicles headed north.

There were 2 families headed south

that we would catch up to, then 

they would pass us and so on. We actually continued

this little game with one of the vehicles,

until the Stuart Highway,

at Hi Way Inn, only 311km from Katherine. 

One of the families was a fella and 2 kids from

Darwin. He was quite the bogan, and super 

unprepared for the trip, but his mate and family 

in the other vehicle was able to keep him going

and supplied until he parted ways with them

at Wiluna, at the end of the Canning. 

Emilee tells me, that this particular

day, the girls were being excessively 

annoying. Not sure what that means,

but they obviously needed to use up some 

excess energy when we stopped, as seen below. 

More relentless corrugates

and multiple tracks to choose from. 

At Well 10 ruins, we stopped for lunch.

On opening the back door of the cruiser,

I found that my lovely roll of chux, 

had unrolled!! It was quite funny,

but not so fun to roll back up.

Needless to say, it did NOT get rolled up 

neatly, and I pegged it this time.

Heading off, we were driving along 

happily when we happened to drive under

a branch that was obviously too low.

All of the sudden, I see our sand flag bend

backwards, and disappear!

We pulled up, and low and behold,

there it was stuck in the fork of a branch

that had neatly snatched it from our car.

We retrieved it and were on our way once more. 

On this trip, we always brought up

the rear, with our friends taking the lead,

and Emilee in the middle, hence all

the rear end views of Em's ute. 

We picked up the firewood that 

bounced off Em's ute and gathered dust

to add to our collection inside the old girl. 

We were now at Well 9 ruins,

on Glen Argyle Station property. 

"Palatji / Weld Springs / Forrest's 'Fort' / Well 9 is a special place. For generations the local Martu people have regarded Palatji as an important source of water, food and other resources and nearby is a significant tjukurrpa (dreaming) site. However, it's also a contested site. John Forrest and his exploration party travelling to the area in 1874, naming it Weld Springs after the colony’s governor, and a conflict ensued with the local Martu people. The spring later became an important stop on the Canning Stock Route, and a watering hole on Glen-Ayle Station"

There is interesting history at this place

and we spent quite a bit of time

looking around. 

"Forrest spent two weeks camped at the springs. On the seventh day of their camp, Forrest records in his diary that a group of 40 to 60 Martu men, “all plumed up and armed with spears and shields”, appeared over the hill overlooking the springs. According to Forrest, the men rushed, “yelling and shouting”, towards the explorers brandishing their spears. Forrest and his men fired at the group forcing them back up the hill where they regrouped. A second approach followed soon after and this time one man was hit and wounded. The next day Forrest records finding blood near the camp and speculated that two men were hit by rifle shot, with at least one suffering a severe wound."

As usual, our old girl

was puffing out her smelly blue

smoke, but I don't think the cattle minded much. 

Travelling along,

we met an American man on a bicycle!

Yeah. Go figure! 

Keen to experience the Australian Outback I suppose. 

I'm guessing he did a lot of walking over the sand dunes. 

After Well 8, we wound our way

through a strange section of track 

that was made up of spindly trees

and a windy track that felt like you were going 

round and round in circles and not actually

getting anywhere, until you finally came 

out into the open once more

and regathered your bearings. 

A bit further on we experienced some

crazy angles on the track that were fun. 

Then Chloe lost her hat out the window.

Don't ask what she was doing hanging that

far out the window. I don't know.

Maybe trying to get away from her sisters. 

We finally arrived at our campsite

for the night. Well 6. A very beautifully restored

well surrounded by huge shady gum trees,

and a little walk to a drop dunny.

We had met up once again with our 2 families

that we were playing chase with.

Somewhere along the way, a couple 

of bolts that held our roof rack on, had

sheared off, which just added to the rattles

but didn't make too much difference to our roof top tent. 

It was getting pretty cold,

so we boiled a lot of water to make our 

shower good and hot this particular night. 

Dave was kept busy collecting and boiling 

water and we all went to bed somewhat warm,

but clean for once! 

I made a lovely damper that 

we lathered in butter and dripping golden 

syrup. Together with smoky billy tea

and a nice hot fire, we were happy campers. 

Another day had come and gone

and we were ready for a sleep

and a brand new day to start

when we awoke. 

To be continued...……….